Rebooting Web-of-Trust

Mission

The Web of Trust is a buzzword for a new model of decentralized self-sovereign identity. It’s a phrase that dates back almost twenty-five years, the classic definition derives from PGP.

But some use it as a term to include self-sovereign identity authentication & verification, certificate validation, and reputation assessment, while the vibrant blockchain community is also drawing new attention to the concept we aim to reboot it.

Purpose

This facilitated design workshop ("DesignShop"), hosted by Christopher Allen, is focused on the creation of the next generation of decentralized web-of-trust based identity systems. The goal of this event is to generate 5 technical white papers on topics decided by the group that will have the greatest impact on the future, followed by a hackathon early in the new year to implement those ideas.

Objectives

Showcase the scope of potential applications for decentralized trust models.

Bring together the top contributors in web of trust and simlar applications.

Explore developing tools that might be useful to funders and researchers.

Discuss and suggest requirements to drive adoption in the Web-of-Trust model.

Outcomes

Build the next generation of Web-Of-Trust based identity systems.

Showcase the scope of potential applications for decentralized trust models.

Bring together the top contributors in web of trust and simlar applications.

Explore developing tools that might be useful to funders and researchers.

Discuss and suggest requirements to drive adoption in the Web-of-Trust model.

Conduct

This community strives to encourage diversity, cohesion, and safety in all of
our interactions. As such, we are currently codifying our code of conduct,
incident handling process, and ensuring that we continually refine these
documents and processes as the community grows. For further information on
the current state of activities, please see the open letter to this community
on the topic of community diversity, cohesion, and safety.

“FinTech applications, regardless of whether they are centralized or decentralized, are putting new demands on WoT and identity by virtue of creating highly profitable targets for attackers. Resisting these attacks requires ecosystem wide code signing”—Peter Todd (Bitcoin Core Developer)

“The web-of-trust that began in Pretty Good Privacy was more than 'pretty good' in 1991 and even in 2001. However, as we approach the 25th anniversary of PGP, it is time to take the lessons we've learned and the new cryptographic technologies we've created to take a fresh look at the problem. I'm looking forward to collaborating to create a new foundation for next 25 years of the web-of-trust.”— Jon Callas (Former CTO PGP, now CTO of Silent Circle/Blackphone)

Join our next event!

The next RWOT event is scheduled for September 26th-September 28th, 2018, in the Toronto area. Sign up with Eventbrite and upload your topic paper to the advanced readings directory using a pull request.

We’d also love to hear from you if you are interested in attending, joining the slack, or becoming a sponsor.Email Christopher Allen at ChristopherA@lifewithalacrity.com